


You Always Knew.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M, One Thousand Words, Song Lyric Title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-22
Updated: 2005-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:24:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos always knew the best way to kill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Always Knew.

**Author's Note:**

> 1000 word fic.
> 
> Soundtrack fic for Little Things by Bush.

There was always something about you. It was in the set of your jaw, in the length of your fingers. It was in your face, clear as morning. It was aristocratic, defiant.

I longed to break you. To love you.

But you. There was always something about you. I could read it as easily as the dawn. You wanted to hurt me. You wanted to kick and scream in my embrace. You wanted to punish me for every wrong ever done you.

You wanted to cut into my skin every wound you'd ever received.

You knew the ways to scar our kind. You knew how to kill me, how to cut. I could have healed that mark a thousand times, but I never did. Mortals are transitory, so are days and years and months and centuries. And you.

You never stayed long. You died in my arms every dusk, scratching hard at the bed. You wanted me to fuck you and kill you. You wanted to rise with the night.

We did our best raids by the light of the crescent moon, but Caspian and Silas never knew. Those raids were two horsemen, riding next to each other, thundering against the ground. We rode to find death. We two brothers, and there was no one else but us. There has never been anyone like us.

You always knew how to bend me. You always knew how to break me. There was a canny wisdom to your centuries and even then there were whispers. Methos, the avenger. Methos, the destroyer. Methos the cruel, Methos the vicious. Under your feet you had left a thousand civilizations. You had abandoned a hundred thousand men to slow, agonizing death.

You had learned to hate mortals. You had learned to see them as less than horses. You knew that their time was brutal, brief, and barren. Eventually, they all died. You had lost too many to think otherwise. You never spoke of the past, but I could feel your secrets in the grip of your hand. You had held lives in your grasp and you had let go. You had let them die.

Angry adolescence? Shame on you. It was not a child who raged against the northern invaders. It was not a child who defended his city with countless deaths. It was the gods' messenger who led the thousands of attacks. You learned to fight while sitting at death's feet. You were born to war, as were all us ancients, and it is something that can never be outgrown.

You tried, I know, but the legends stuck through the ages. Your watcher friends would kill you if they knew how carefully your bloodstained hands swept the record clean. Mortals could never understand your pain, but I tried. You left and you returned, and there was always a place for you in my bed. I knew the horrors of your past. I led you in the battle charge. I helped you kill. I helped you paint your face the color of vengeance.

You had lost your kingdom, but I left you to a new one. You promised to come back, but you never did.

You were two thousand years old when you bought me at auction in Germany. You were three thousand when I found you in a whorehouse in India. You wanted me to find you, brother. You always find me when you long to kill.

You are five thousand now and everyone knows your name. Some believe you to be the other Methos, the peace-seeking Immortal, but I know better, brother. He never had your arrogance. He never had your pride. You loved Darius, I know, but this Methos was beneath you. Darius understood horror. Darius understood rivers that ran red. You understood Darius' guilt, but there is peace and there is foolishness. And you were never foolish.

I've felt you revive inside me too many times. I've felt your knife in my chest too many times. I know you, Methos. We are two of a kind, and there have never been riders like us. No one has ever been feared like we were.

We were the horsemen of the apocalypse and we brought death.

You always knew the best ways, the most cruel and skillful ways, and you taught me too much. You taught me how to murder. You taught me how to hurt. You showed me how to sharpen knives on broken dreams, on the tears of innocents. You showed me how to hate, how to let the rage drive me. You showed me how to warm myself in the fires of your pain.

You never should have given me the tools to break you, brother. You never should have handed over the reins. You never should have shown me how to break through. You taught me how to be you, you taught me how to think like you. You showed me power and brotherhood and you showed me your weakness. Then you made your mistake.

You trusted me. You loved me. But you chose a child over me. You chose Macleod. _My_ brother would never have offered his head to an honourable man. _My_ brother would have been killed before doing anything that foolish. A thousand years ago you would have accepted my order, you would have understood that there could be no others. But you chose Macleod over me.

A thousand years, brother. A thousand years we rode together. A thousand years we killed together. A thousand years we loved and fought alongside each other. And a thousand years is not something easily forgotten.

Ah, Methos, you've grown soft with the ages. But you knew what I was when you joined your strength with mine. I'll set you straight, older brother. I'll set you back on the path. You will be my Methos once more, and I will be your Kronos.

I will make you strong and then we will ride once more, you and I. I swear it.


End file.
